A Birthday Cake for Dean
by kdsch123
Summary: Sam has trouble deciding on a cake for his brother's birthday. Winchesters have a different way of celebrating...


A Birthday Cake for Dean

My very first Supernatural fic for halfshellvenus' birthday.

By Denise (kdsch123)

Fandom: Supernatural

Pairing: Gen, but if you see something there, go with it. ;)

Acknowledgements: I own nothing. Happy Birthday!

Summary: Winchesters don't do things like everyone else. Even birthdays.

Dean didn't do birthdays. Sam knows this, and yet here he is in a small bakery in a small town whose name escapes him for the moment, trying to pick out a cake for his brother. A brother whose sweet tooth is legendary and whose appetite is ferocious, especially after a night drinking at the local bar. It's nine o'clock in the morning and Sam is here trying to decide between butter cream and whipped cream while the birthday boy snores loudly in their hotel room. His birthday present was already hidden away, a new leather bound journal, like Dad's. What Sam really wanted to buy Dean was an MP-3 player so he could download every one of Dean's heavy metal favorites and replace the cassettes that were lost when the Impala had been broadsided. The MP-3 player would have to wait for another time, and Sam was busy collecting songs on his laptop until then.

In all fairness to Dean's birthday prejudice, Sam hadn't been much on birthdays either, until he'd gone to away to college. Once his friends had determined it wasn't out of a religious conviction that he didn't celebrate, they made sure it never passed without a party again. Jess had been very good at making sure the day was always special. The last birthday cake she made him came temptingly to mind.

"Make up your mind?" The woman behind the counter asks pleasantly and Sam shakes his head. Not for the first time, Sam wishes he could remember their mother. What kind of cake would she have made for them? His eye falls on an obscene mound of chocolate icing and he looks up at the woman who smiles. "That's devil's food. It's divine." Sam winces, thinking that no matter how great the chocolate cake might be, he's not bringing ANYTHING called devil's food back to Dean.

"Don't you have anything not quite so, fancy?" Sam asks, looking at the very feminine loops and swirls of icing on every cake in the refrigerated case. "This is for my brother…"

"Oh, the decorations usually don't matter to men, dear." The woman said with a grandmotherly smile. "They only care what the cake tastes like."

"True." Sam nods, but in his mind he can hear Dean's whoops of laughter at the intricate pink and white roses on the cake Sam is studying right now. Shaking his head, he moves on. Finally, there, at the end of the case is a plain, chocolate frosted cake that seems to Sam like it might have a chance. 'What's that?"

"That? Oh.." The woman walks to the end of the case and slides the door on her side open. "It's just yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Not anything special. My granddaughter is just learning and she made it."

"I'll take it." Sam nods, shoving a hand into his pocket for his money. "It's perfect."

"I couldn't sell it to you, dear." The bakery lady says thoughtfully. "I wouldn't know what to charge you for it. Honestly, I only put it in there to make the girl happy."

"Is she here?" Sam asks, afraid now after spending a half hour trying to decide that this perfect cake will not be Deans after all. "Will she sell it to me?"

The bakery lady pouts sweetly as she considers this. "Just a moment." She disappears in the back and returns with a young woman. This girl is maybe a year younger than Sam, with long, dark hair and blue eyes that are very similar to the bakery ladys. She's wearing jeans and a royal blue t-shirt that is the same color as those miraculous eyes, and her smile lights up the room.

"Hi. My grandmother says you want to buy my cake?" Blue t shirt girl says, and Sam nods, transfixed. Sometimes Sam can see into people, and there is nothing about this girl that isn't pure and good, like that cake in the display case. Like Jess. Sam snaps himself back into reality.

"My brothers birthday." Sam tells her and she nods solemnly.

"It's just a practice cake. I made it this morning. I was going to work on the icing and all later. Are you sure you want it like that?" Blue t-shirt girl says and Sam smiles.

"I can't tell you how perfect it is. I will take it, if you'll sell it to me." Sam says and the girl smiles wider.

"Okay." She bends over gracefully and pulls the cake from the display case for him. In a flash it's boxed up and Sam's on his way back to the motel, hoping that Dean will understand what the real present Sam is trying to give him is all about. Sam looks up at the room where his brother is sleeping and sighs. Normal people take their birthdays for granted. But Sam knows that Winchesters do and see things differently than normal people. Even birthdays.


End file.
